Hawks annihilate roller-coaster Red Wings

Chicago Blackhawks left wing Brandon Saad (20) drives on Detroit Red Wings goalie Jimmy Howard (35) to score in the first period of an NHL hockey game Sunday, March 31, 2013, in Detroit. The Blackhawks defeated the Red Wings 7-1.

Photograph by: AP Photo/Duane Burleson
, Postmedia News

Better yet, draw upon the wisdom of former NFL coach Dennis Green, who might suggest that the Wings “are who we thought they were.”

Which in this case would be not good enough.

Good enough to make the playoffs, yes. Good enough to make a playoff run?

Doubtful.

A 7-1 debacle handed to them by the league-leading Chicago Blackhawks on Easter Sunday at Joe Louis Arena only served to amplify that reality.

“Ugly’s an understatement, obviously,” Wings coach Mike Babcock said in assessment of his club’s performance.

Not frequently, but often enough to hammer the point home, it’s proven an apt descriptive of the way Detroit has played at times this season.

Red Wings legend Gordie Howe turned 85 Sunday and a collection of Detroit hockey luminaries — including Ted Lindsay, Alex Delvecchio, Tomas Holmstrom and Nicklas Lidstrom — were on hand to help serenade him with a chorus of happy birthday.

Short of packing them all into Dr. Emmett Brown’s 1981 DeLorean DMC-12 from Back To The Future and returning them all to their primes, there’s little the Wings can do before Sunday’s trade deadline to turn the club into a legitimate Stanley Cup contender.

“Preparation and work ethic are two things you need to be successful in any walk of life and we weren’t prepared and we didn’t compete at a high enough level,” Babcock said of Sunday’s performance. “Anyway you look at it, they capitalized on our poor effort.”

Often enough to cause concern, this has proven to be an ongoing storyline during Detroit’s season.

The Wings show signs of being able to go toe-to-toe with the NHL’s best — back-to-back road wins over Pacific Division-leading Anaheim last week being a prime example — then they morph back into the team that isn’t willing to pay the price and stick with the game plan over the long haul.

The result is games like Sunday’s drubbing

“There are way too many ups and downs,” Wings defenceman Niklas Kronwall acknowledged of their persona this season.

Chicago scored on its first three shots and it was pretty much game, set and match from that point forward.

“It just went in our net every time they shot it,” Babcock said.

Red Wings defenceman Jonathan Ericsson finished the day minus-five. Detroit defenceman Jakub Kindl actually shot the third Blackhawks goal into his own net.

After the game, Kindl wandered through a nearly vacant Detroit dressing room wearing nothing but his skates and his underwear, as if the Blackhawks had literally spent the afternoon undressing him.

Apologists may be willing to chalk up Sunday’s dismal performance as atypical of the first game following a West Coast swing.

Others may point out that the Wings were thrown off kilter when Detroit captain Henrik Zetterberg was a late scratch due to a suspected groin issue.

Chicago coach Joel Quenneville readily offered up that mulligan.

“Them missing a key guy like that certainly helps,” Quenneville said.

The Wings weren’t about to accept any Blackhawks charity.

“There is no excuse,” Kronwall said. “We just weren’t playing hockey from the start whatsoever. It was embarrassing at times.”

In spurts this season, Detroit has proven it can perform at a high level.

Other occasions, they’ve sputtered like a 1967 Oldsmobile.

That’s why it’s foolhardy to suggest them as legitimate contenders and would be even more foolish to seek to rectify the situation with any sort of trade-deadline bombshell.

This is who the Wings really are, and for the time being, people are just going to have to accept that.

Chicago Blackhawks left wing Brandon Saad (20) drives on Detroit Red Wings goalie Jimmy Howard (35) to score in the first period of an NHL hockey game Sunday, March 31, 2013, in Detroit. The Blackhawks defeated the Red Wings 7-1.

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